In a saga recalling The Silence of the Lambs, a Milwaukee man is seized in a den of preserved heads and mutilated body parts

For months residents sensed that all was not right at the Oxford Apartments, a 49-unit low-rise building on Milwaukee's crime-infested west side. A power saw buzzed at odd hours. The putrid odor of rotting meat flooded the corridors. Occasionally, a tenant would hear a cry or the thump of a falling object on the second floor.

When police entered Apartment 213 last week, they were shocked to find a freezer covered with Polaroid photographs of mutilated men. Inside they discovered two severed heads and one more stashed in the refrigerator. A closet and filing cabinet yielded more human skulls and a...